The first in CoD's Black Ops series, 2010's Call of Duty: Black Ops brought players an immersive campaign and a new multiplayer experience.

First released in November 2012 for PC, Xbox 360. PS 3 and Wii U, Call of Duty: Black Ops II is the sequel to Activision’s earlier title Call of Duty: Black Ops. The game continues to build on the story of some of the characters from the original, with a part of the story happening during the Cold War ear and moving well into the future to follow up on events that include the son of Alex Mason’s son.

In many ways, Call of Duty: Black Ops II changed the entire first person shooter genre, by introducing new mechanics, new gameplay modes, more customizable class creation and generally being a remarkable game.

Let us take a closer look at what exactly it is that makes Call of Duty: Black Ops so great.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II Story Mode

The main campaign in COD: Black Ops II is a real thing of beauty. Taking part in both the historic Cold War era and the futuristic setting of 2025, the game introduces a number of missions that will have you act as a solo agent, lead strike forces, use drones and vehicles to destroy your enemies and gather intel and put you as close as possible to experiencing what it would be to actually serve as a covert operative.

The game’s main campaign features a great number of player choices and decisions which will greatly impact the other events in the game. Multiple missions can be completed in more than one way, or left only partly completed and all of these choices will affect how the game’s storyline will develop from there.

The story follows characters from the original Black Ops, Alex Mason and Frank Woods, along with Alex’s son David in their combat against the title’s leading villain, Raul Mendez of the notorious Cordis Die criminal organization. The storylines of each of the characters were so well written that by the end you may very well find yourself empathizing with the villains or even disliking some of the game’s would be heroes.

The game offers a number of different ways for the story to end, which will be determined based on your numerous choices. Playing Call of Duty: Black Ops will make you feel like your decisions and choices actually matter, which was seldom a case with games prior to its release, which makes it quite a revolutionary title.

When it comes to actually blowing your enemies into pieces in the field, this is done in the way we are used to from the COD franchise. With the use of a number of realistic weapons from the Cold War era and some futuristic warfare in the 2025 missions, you will have a chance to kill dozens of bad guys and become the hero you were always meant to be.

The game features missions that will have you using simple pistols and machine guns and then goes all the way up to riding powerful vehicles or drones to do the same in a much more effective ways. While some missions have you leading strike forces with a number of friendly forces, these will often come down to you taking the lead and doing the majority of killing, with your teammates there more to drive the action and give you a chance to make some of those crucial choices.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II Multiplayer

Yet another area where COD: Black Ops II shines is the multiplayer. The multiplayer provides the majority of previously seen online multiplayer gameplay modes, such as the Team Deathmatch or Capture The Flag, along with some new ones like Hardpoint.

Entering public games is simple enough using your broadband, but before you do this, there is ample opportunity to jump into games where you can kill off bots and practice without facing the experienced and nearly professional COD players.

Whichever you choose, you will be able to do so with a soldier more customizable than ever. Using the Pick 10 mechanics, the developers allow you to spend up to 10 points equipping your soldier with primary and secondary weapons, grenades, perks and attachments, which will make every single character completely different in game and will allow for plenty of surprises during actual gameplay.

What is more, the prestige system of previous COD games was improved to provide even more awards for players with high prestige levels, making earning prestige points actually quite valuable. On the overall, multiplayer in COD: Black Ops II is a significant improvement to previous COD games and fairly revolutionary for the time it was released.

Change Things Up With Zombies

If you are growing kind of sick of actual warfare and prefer blowing up zombies rather than actual people, Black Ops II includes a Zombie mode with a fictive campaign where your main enemy will be hosts of undead blue eyed walking corpses.

The Tranzit campaign as it is called has you simply destroying wave after wave of these vile things, with some awesome character banter and a ton of easygoing fun which can sometimes be lacking in the very intense and edgy main campaign.

Zombie mode, like in the original Black Ops, was made to help you relax and unwind when you simply feel like shooting at things without thinking too much. While it is not a very important part of the game, I had a ton of fun blowing their brains out and I am sure you will as well.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II Final Verdict

The second COD: Black Ops game developed by Treyarch and released by Activision, this title was a complete revolution to the way we saw FPS games back in 2012. While many new COD titles have come since, Black Ops II remains as exciting and fun to play today as it was back then.

The great amount of choices you can make to influence the outcome of the main campaign, the solid amount of added customizability to class creation and competitive online prestige system make Call of Duty: Black Ops II one of the most complete FPS games of all time.